The Germ Theory of Disease

"The steam engine," he decried. "Surely the steam engine is the machine that drove the revolution of society from being largely agrarian to predominantly industrial. It is to this machine that we owe the debt of a century and a half of progress."

Smoothly, I interjected: "My good man, surely you know that the steam engine was invented nearly 2000 years ago by none other than Heron. How could a machine invented 2000 years ago only come to change society 150 years ago?"

Using the cold-forged weapons of facts on logic, he shut down my argument thusly: "Heron invented a steam engine, but it was never exploited as anything more than a curiosity in his day. As such, it had no affect on society until the industrial revolution. I must say that I find your argument to be a tad disingenuous and a non sequitur."

So I lost that argument, and to some extent my friend and I lost respect for each other: he for my fallacious argument, and I for his unforgiving harshness.

Nevertheless, I was right about one thing: the germ theory of disease was a heckuva step in the march of progress, enabling longer life, better education, healthier people and resplendent happiness. All hail the germ theory of disease!

Single-Payer Healthcare

I've often heard people ask questions about medical and health-care issues. I've heard questions like:

• How many nurse's does it take to screw in a light bulb?
  
• What do you call an occupational therapist with the runs?
  
• What did the x-ray technician say when he saw his parking ticket?
  
• What did the doctor say to his patient who had a sore knee?

I am just paraphrasing here, but you get the idea.

I am not a health-care professional, so I don't have the answers to these questions. However, there is one health-care question that I unequivocally do know the answer to:

How awesome is the single payer health-care system?

The answer is, of course, totally awesome! Every citizen in Canada has the same access to medical care, and we do well by it. We live long, healthy lives filled with the best hernia treatments, doughnuts, brain surgery and hockey that the world has to offer. Every aspect of life is more enjoyable, knowing that medical treatment is equally accessible to all.